Q&A: The Candidate Who Would Turn Things Around at Work
The Candidate Who Would Turn Things Around at Work
Question
Hello Rabbi, a question I didn’t want to ask but got dragged into asking.
I and someone else (computer science students) interviewed for a job, and they made me an offer (it’s now in my hands to accept or decline), and they told him that they had made an offer to someone else (it’s probably me), and if that person doesn’t want it then they’ll move forward with him.
A mutual friend is pressuring me to give up the job for that other guy, because he gets stressed in interviews and somehow it worked out for him there, and if this doesn’t work out then it’ll be hard for him to find something, and all kinds of explanations like his grades are less high and he had a bit of luck, but it’ll be easier for me to find something, and also this specific job isn’t exactly what I wanted while it is exactly what that other guy wanted, plus all kinds of other pressure (nonstop).
I don’t want to give it up. I’m not friends with that guy and I don’t really know him, and it doesn’t suit me to take his well-being into account in my considerations too. In any competition, you can ask the winner to give up to the other person. I told the mutual friend that I’m going for it, and that’s that.
He’s pressuring me to ask a rabbi. I told him I don’t see any halakhic issue here; it’s like asking a rabbi whether I’m obligated to donate 1,000 shekels to some random person on the street.
It’s clear to me that I’m not obligated. And I also don’t understand the moral expectation that I should start complicating my life because maybe it will help others. If it were something minor then yes, but here it’s clear that I would pay 1,000 shekels in order to go for this job and finish this whole job-search saga.
But he’s pressuring me. So I’m asking. I hope and assume you’ll answer me that I really am not obligated, and that there’s no moral expectation of me either, and only if I’m exceptionally generous-hearted should I take him into consideration. (I don’t know if this matters, but the mutual friend “approved” the wording I wrote here, although he said, “I would phrase it a little differently; it’s not like donating money, but it’s your right.”)
Thank you very much!
Answer
You answered yourself correctly. If he is in significant distress and his chances of getting a job are small, and for you this is not an ideal job and you have alternatives, then it seems to me that there is a moral consideration here. But that is all, of course. And even that I’m saying not in my capacity as a rabbi.